The party is over for frosh week — even the name is getting the cold shoulder — as Canadian universities, colleges and student associations welcome undergraduates with activities that emphasize good clean fun over excessive partying.

Goodbye Frosh Week, hello Welcome Week, Orientation Week, 101 Week and any number of names that rebrand an event that has long been associated with drinking games, alcohol-fuelled escapades, controversies, and sometimes calamity.

Thousands of students who pour into Ottawa this weekend to begin university and college will likely experience a gentler version of frosh week than their older siblings did.

This year’s offerings at Carleton University, for example, include a keynote speaker, tickets to a Redblacks game and to the Folk Festival and a talent show. Alcohol is banned. “We want to demonstrate they can have a good time without alcohol,” said Jeremy Brzozowski, manager of the school’s First Year Experience office.

University of Ottawa holds a president’s brunch Sunday, information sessions and barbecues as part of its Welcome Week. The student federation-run 101 Week includes numerous social activities, including a carnival, a games night and karaoke. Alcohol is not banned, but drinking games are, as are visitors in dorm rooms during orientation week. All events offered by the university are dry except for the university football game.

Across the country, frosh week events range from picnics and parades to movie screenings, barbecues and carnivals — events in which all students can participate, whether they are above or below legal drinking age, says Jessica McCormick, national chair of the Canadian Federation of Students. “I don’t think orientation events focus so much on partying.”

Student volunteers put together a welcome package for the new students at Carleton University, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014.

Ottawa Citizen

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Post-secondary institutions have been rethinking the frosh experience for a number of years, but recent issues, such as the controversy over chants at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and the University of British Columbia that promoted or made light of non-consensual sex with minors, have brought the trend to the forefront.

This week, Saint Mary’s announced it was remaking its frosh week, including changing the event’s name to Welcome Week and setting up a vetting and training process for leaders, including sessions on sexual consent, diversity, alcohol, mental health and leadership.

Frosh week incidents are not new. Acadia University in Nova Scotia adopted a strict alcohol policy after a student died in 2011 after a night of heavy drinking in his dorm room during the first week of school. Alcohol is banned in dorm rooms during orientation week there, although Acadia has not gone as far as Carleton or as the University of Western Ontario, which strictly bans alcohol at all fall orientation activities. In 2010, a student fell from his dorm room and died during frosh week at Queen’s University.

There have been others events: some high-profile, some less so. Research released in Ottawa earlier this summer noted that reports of sexual assaults in the city go up during the first few weeks of the post-secondary year; many more are believed to go unreported. Many schools include information for volunteers and students about rape culture and preventing sexual violence.

Carleton, which considers itself a leader when it comes to orientation programs, has had a dry orientation week since the double cohort of Ontario high school students began pouring into post-secondary institutions in 2005, a phenomenon that brought younger teens to campus. This year, 1,200 volunteers who will help with orientation events beginning this weekend will sign a charter of responsibilities that calls from them to abstain from alcohol and drug use throughout the seven-day event.

Orientation week volunteers with the student federation at the University of Ottawa have also been given special training and signed an agreement that they will not drink or take drugs during the orientation period.

Banning alcohol from frosh week activities is controversial.

McCormick argues that bans do more harm than good by driving drinking underground and potentially putting students at more risk. Part of the focus at some schools, including the University of Ottawa and Acadia, is on responsible use of alcohol. It is allowed, but controlled, on campus during frosh week.

Last month, students and officials at Ottawa’s post-secondary institutions spoke out after a private company posted a video advertising frosh-week activities filled with images of alcohol and substance abuse. The toning down of official frosh week events could create a demand for wilder, private parties, some speculate.

The changing approaches to official frosh week represent more than simply a reaction to controversies. Universities and colleges have changed from the days when “the student government just threw a big party,” in the words of Jennifer Hamilton, executive director of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services.

University administrations are now heavily involved in orientation week activities, something that was once left to student councils. Institutions recognize that the way students are introduced to school can directly affect their academic success. Post-secondary institutions are also becoming more attuned to their liability around risky behaviour.

And there are other changes. University is more expensive than it once was, and students have different expectations and so do their parents, who are much more involved than those of previous generations, notes Hamilton. And many first-year students are not of legal drinking age, especially since Grade 13 was eliminated in Ontario.

Hamilton said there has been an evolution in orientation approaches.

“We have been having these conversations for a number of years and many institutions have done this work already. Some are farther along than others at looking at best practices in terms of welcoming students in a positive way that will contribute to their success.”

As for the name: “I don’t think frosh week has a negative connotation. But I understand why an institution trying to make a change would want a new name.”

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